Interview: SoCal’s Zoie Tannous on Bringing CLUE’s Yvette to Life on Tour

Will it be a candlestick? A wrench? A lead pipe? Fans of the classic board game and beloved cult classic film will find out when the touring production of CLUE (directed by Casey Hushion and written by Sandy Rustin) comes to the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts March 11-13. 

Based on the iconic Hasbro game and the 1985 film, the stage adaptation turns the whodunit into a rapid-fire theatrical farce packed with physical comedy, surprise twists, and a cast full of suspicious characters.  

Among the cast is Los Angeles native Zoie Tannous, who plays the scheming French maid Yvette. A graduate of the BFA musical theatre program at the University of California, Irvine, Tannous grew up in the San Fernando Valley before moving to New York to pursue acting professionally.

Now touring the country with CLUE, Tannous sat down with BroadwayWorld to talk about returning to Southern California, performing the show’s over-the-top slapstick antics on stage, and what audiences can expect.

Tell us a little about your background. Where did you grow up, and how did you get into theater?

Absolutely. So I grew up in the San Fernando Valley. I started doing theater at a pretty young age, mostly starting in choir-based type work, and then eventually ended up going to high school at Chaminade in the Valley. And then after I went there, I decided to stay in California for college. I went to UC Irvine. I did a quick pivot out of theater and went into psychology and very quickly was like, ‘No, I really think I need to be doing theater.’

What has it been like returning to Southern California with a national tour?

Our first stop here in California was Palm Desert. So my mom saw me for the first time there—that was awesome. My brother had flown out, my dad had flown out to other locations, but my mom's first location to get to see me was Palm Desert. She texted my aunt and uncle Dayev just to be like, ‘Hey, just so you know, she's here for the week if you want to go see her.’ And they ended up surprising me on the same night that my parents were there, so that was really cool and super emotional for me.

I had some friends who drove over to Palm Desert to see me from the valley as well. So a lot of people from high school. And then moving on. As I head over to Folsom, I'm going to see some more friends and family.

And it kind of just continues until finally I get to Cerritos, where some of my professors from UC Irvine are going to come down to see me. And I'm really thrilled and excited about that, because to get to be able to say I'm doing this professionally to the people who helped train me is really exciting.

How would you describe Clue to someone who has never seen the show, played the game, or watched the movie?

In a nutshell, the show is a slapstick comedy that feels like you hop on a train and then the train takes you as quickly to every location that you didn't think you were going to go to. So you spend that hour just absolutely belly laughing, trying to figure out what the rest of the suspects who did the murder.  

Is the show the same every night? 

It's the same show every night. Like, it's always going to be the same killer; there is no rotating ending. But I will say you should come and find out exactly how it ends.

The show is known for its physical comedy. Was slapstick challenging for you?

I think actually, slapstick comedy is one of the more fun things you can do in acting, because it's really important for us that these characters are still real. We're not doing, a cartoon-type comedy. It still has a level of sophistication to it, by nature of the fact that we are dealing with murder. The stakes are high. These characters are going through these real emotions about, ‘What the heck is happening to me? I thought I came to a dinner.’ 

The show is really well-paced in order to be able to do that. And it keeps it really fun because slapstick is so physical that even if you've seen something before, you can't replicate the same physical thing to a T every night.

Does that make each performance feel a little different?

In a way, yes. But also our job is to stay consistent, right in the rehearsal room, we're keeping it fresh and doing everything. And on stage, there are these tiny moments where you get to go, wow, that was a little different. But it's only so subtle for us on stage. What's actually happening for the audience is the same every night.

Tell us about your character, Yvette.

So I play Yvette, the French maid in the show. You're probably more familiar with the board game characters—Yvette is not one of them. She’s a character that came from the movie, and some of the books as well, actually.

Yvette is in on the secret. We have the butler, who's the kind of mastermind of the evening. His name is Wadsworth, and he works very closely with Yvette to plan what this night is going to look like. So much so that we start off the show very much scheming. From there, as the suspects continue to enter, the night goes awry. 

This is a straight play, not a musical. How was that transition for you as a musical theatre performer?

Yes. It's a straight play. But, I mean, the show has a lot of musical elements to it, by nature of being a comedy. There's so much rhythm that's involved in being able to do comedy and doing it well. So even though I have my background in musical theater, I have always been somebody who fell in love with acting first. And so getting to do something that allows me to explore acting to such extents without the musical elements is actually freeing in a way.

Are there moments where it's hard not to laugh on stage?

So no one's ever broken character on stage, but there are definitely moments where it is hard not to laugh.

For instance: There's kind of a timed silence in the show, and we're all used to it going completely dead silent and then we move on. And in this particular performance, there was an audience member who had to clear their throat or something.

What was funny was seeing the person on stage think, ‘Am I going to do something with this or not?’ Is this something I can play with or not? And they ended up making a small little noise right before their next line. Nobody else in the audience would have really noticed, but we all left stage absolutely cracking up.

Your Playbill note references “Flames… flames on the side of my face.” What does that mean?

Flames on the side of my face is actually a quote from the Clue movie. Like I said, I'm such a major fan of the film. We are huge Madeline Kahn, Tim Curry fans. And growing up, when I got upset, my family thought that I sounded like Madeline Kahn. There's a scene in the movie that's very famous, and it's Mrs. White going, ‘Flames, flames on the side of my face.’

Whenever I was starting to get a little worked up over something. My family would make me laugh instead of letting me get worked up and say, ‘Flames on the side of my face!’ Because that's how my voice would sound when I was getting angry.

Last question: What’s your CLUE weapon of choice? 

For me, it's the candlestick. I mean, growing up playing the board game, I always wanted it to be the candlestick. I just thought it was such a random weapon, one that you could have anywhere. And the fact that candlestick could be enough to protect you in a time of need—or I guess to murder with—was something that was really exciting for me, so I'm going to stick with my childhood favorite.